36.2420, Reviews: Other Indonesians: Joseph Errington (2022)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-36-2420. Thu Aug 14 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.2420, Reviews: Other Indonesians: Joseph Errington (2022)

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Date: 14-Aug-2025
From: Hyunisa Rahmanadia [hyunisa at student.elte.hu]
Subject: Anthropological Linguistics: Joseph Errington (2022)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/33-3483

Title: Other Indonesians
Subtitle: Nationalism in an Unnative Language
Series Title: Oxford Studies in the Anthropology of Language
Publication Year: 2022

Publisher: Oxford University Press
           http://www.oup.com/us
Book URL:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/other-indonesians-9780197563670?utm_source=linguistlist&utm_medium=listserv&utm_campaign=linguistics

Author(s): Joseph Errington

Reviewer: Hyunisa Rahmanadia

SUMMARY
The book "Other Indonesian" provides a concise yet comprehensive
analysis of language use in the Indonesian periphery. The title itself
represents the other than standard Indonesian languages which are
merely underexplored because of the rise of the regime of
standardization and centralization of Indonesian language. It was
written by a Yale University professor who has investigated Indonesian
sociolinguistics and anthropology since 1977. His direct experience
with the community provides the reader with information on the local
realities of the Indonesian language spoken in Middle Indonesia, which
typically receives little attention. The book presents evidence of the
development of a vernacular language in Kupang and Pontianak,
Indonesia. This behavior emerges from a blend of Indonesian and local
languages; and the vernacular serves as a lingua franca in a
multicultural environment. The book also showcases how young
Indonesians from diverse ethnic backgrounds use the vernaculars to
communicate with each other.
Chapter 1 A valuable paradox
In this chapter, Errington describes the creation of the Indonesian
language back before the independence of the country, as well as the
way that the political dynamic shaped the future of the language.
Indonesian language is mentioned as an unnative language rather than a
non native language, signaling that absence of native models, because
most Indonesian people speak Indonesian as their mother tongue but
with various ethnolinguistic backgrounds which influence their
language behavior (Anderson, 1991). Moreover, as noted by Goenawan
Muhammad (2008), the Indonesian language represents a valuable
paradox, distinguishing it from other languages. It exists between the
opposing duality of government policies aimed at promoting
standardized forms, often referred to as Bahasa Indonesia yang baik
dan benar (‘the good and true Indonesian language’), and the pervasive
influence of local languages in everyday communication enriching
Indonesian with the diversity of regional vernaculars.
Chapter 2 A Provincial Indonesian
The writer reports his field research in Kupang, one of Indonesia's
least developed cities located in Nusa Tenggara Timur. Due to its
shared border with Timor Leste, Kupang has grown to be a politically
significant city. It has also become the home of central government
employees who make up the majority of the city's educated middle
class. The investigation into language use among different ethnicities
shows a decrease in their significance in Kupang’s vernacular. The
empirical evidence that was taken from everyday conversations among
mahasiswa ‘university students’ (natives or newcomers) shows how
Kupang vernacular differs from standard Indonesian in lexical and
grammatical perspectives. It also describes the syncretism of
Indonesian grammatical elements and the vernacular realization.
Chapter 3 Identifying with Indonesian
>From Kupang, the writer moves forward with his research conducted in
Pontianak, the capital of the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan.
The population in the area is made up of Chinese, Malay, and Dayak
people, as well as a growing number of migrants from cities throughout
Indonesia (Chan, 2009). After giving some historical background on the
ethnopolitical dynamic and urban life as the context of most of the
population, this chapter explains three specific contrasts between
standard Indonesian and Bahasa Melayu Pontianak (a variety of Malay
spoken in Pontianak). The description is focused on the emergence of
biaccentual talk results from the syncretic registers of speech in
both pronunciations. The comparison includes the province and style
accent among the Indonesian speaker group (less educated native Malay,
native Malay, newcomer Malay, and Dayak).
Chapter 4 A Plural Unity
The author expresses his concern in the final chapter over how
standard Indonesian can be perceived as a threat to inguistic
diversity; yet from the other side, the Indonesian language also faces
the same threat from English. The growing diversity of ‘other’
Indonesian languages, on the other hand, seems to foster a sense of
national belonging among speakers of those languages. This chapter is
closed by providing three comparisons of near-similar conditions in
some of the world’s national languages, those in Catalonia, the
Netherlands, and European urban centers. The term "superdiverse" is
also used to describe the various varieties of Indonesian that are
related to the speakers' ethno-regional background, native language
proficiency, age, social status, and other factors.
EVALUATION
The ’Other Indonesians’ book points out the crucial little-known fact
that the Indonesian language is evolving in different ways when it
comes to informal communication in different cities in Indonesia. The
two cities selected accurately illustrate the two most prevalent
ethno-regional language issues. Kupang is the perfect example of a
province with a small population that is far from the ‘center’ but
still exposed to the regime of standardization, while Pontianak serves
as an example of how migrants and a large population from various
origins  impact one another in daily communication style.
>From a methodological standpoint, the writer introduces the blend
method to understand the language behavior of speakers characterized
by various variables. The main method used in the investigation is the
interview or semi-structured interview, in which speakers with a wide
range of ethnic backgrounds sometimes face difficulties due to
challenging circumstances. The interview is conducted by an
interviewer with the same ethnic background as the subjects, in order
to preserve the naturalness of the environment. The study is enriched
with queries requiring self-reflection on the speakers’ nativeness and
the use of languages in their environments. This method is efficient
in clarifying the results taken from the interview process.
There are, however, some technical issues that need to be addressed.
First, some mistyping appears on some pages. For example, the word
merantua in the example group 3.6 should be written merantau
‘emigrate’ (page 64), and the transcription dating in Transcript 2.3
should be datang ‘come’ (page 46). In example 7c (page 66), it is
better to consider the word masalah, rather than soal or persoalan, as
a proper choice in standard Indonesian to replace the foreign
borrowing problèm  in the context. Additionally, I wish to highlight
an aspect of the vernacular grammatical system observed in the data,
which differs from standard Indonesian and lies beyond the scope of
the author’s research focus. For instance, on page 37, the phrase ada
hamil is not grammatically acceptable in standard Indonesian, where
the appropriate construction would be sedang hamil ('is getting
pregnant'). This linguistic variation presents an intriguing area for
further exploration in future research.
This book has widened the range of Indonesian language study that
needs to be done in many linguistics fields. This new domain, which is
based on sociological and anthropological research, requires further
study in order to map the contrasts on grammatical, semantic, and
pragmatic levels between the standard Indonesian which usually called
as Bahasa Indonesia yang Baik dan Benar ‘The Good and True of
Indonesian Language’ and the “other" Indonesians. This kind of further
study will assist the government in determining how to proceed in
developing appropriate policies to support Indonesian as the language
of unity while respecting the vernaculars and regional languages.
REFERENCES
Anderson, B. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflection on the Origin and
Spread of Nationalism. New York: Verso.
Chan, M. 2009. Chinese New Year in West Kalimantan: Ritual theatre and
political circus. Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies 3:106-142.
Mohammad, G. 2008. Gado-Gado. In Bahasa! Kumpulan tulisan di majalah
Tempo [Language! Collected writings from Tempo Magazine], ed. B.
Bujono and L. S. Chudori, pp. 3-6. Jakarta:Pusat Data dan Analisa
TEMPO.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Hyunisa Rahmanadia is a Ph.D. candidate at Eötvös Loránd University.
She focuses her study on the pragmatic area of the Indonesian
language.



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